Dept of Labor Releases Bogus Unemployment Numbers, LIES

[retro-man]

I'm not arguing against improved efficiency - but I think that the decline shown in the graph does not represent a giant improvement in efficiency. I don't think we sudenly needed 4% of our population to stop working. And I don't think wives and others want to stay home and stop working because their homes were foreclosed. If anything, the market decline and low rates of return on investment would force more people back into the workforce.

What I am suggesting is that the improvement in efficiency, and outsourcing, diverted Americans away from real productive work that might have commanded a decent wage in the real scheme of things. Many economists have remarked on this, both at home and abroad - the Japanese have a term for it that roughly translates as "hollowization" of the economy. Think of it as shipping containers of money to first Japan, then China. To compensate for this loss of real wealth coming from real material production, we put spouses to work (this is remarked on in the article too), then when that ran out of steam, we started borrowing against our homes, which a de-regulated financial industry was all too happy to oblige, with specious derivatives and useless financial instruments. (See also "financialization"). When that bubble had run its course, there was nowhere else to go. So, I would argue that we did suddenly need 4% of our population to stop working (and a healthy percentage of the rest to work on diminished wages). Because we had shoveled all the money either overseas, or to the top (the GINI index, and the gap between median and average net worth is telling in this respect), and there is not enough left for the great consumer middle to keep the engine going - not the way it had been going. Basically we've been living on borrowed time since around 1970 (probably grbeck would agree with me on that one) - though I like to blame Reagan for instituting a transformation that, although seeming to help for awhile, ultimately had a disastrous effect on the middle class - when carried mindlessly too far (which has been David Stockman's message lately). The smashing of PATCO was emblematic of what would happen to decent wage jobs as a result of the political climate set in motion by "the Reagan Revolution". The voodoo economic ideology of trickle-down has been equally disastrous. Edited October 20, 2012 by retro-man

[Langston Hughes]

Here is the BLS data - LINK

 

The CNN link is not opening on my computer.

 

I'd like to take a minute and suggest that you are aware that the worklife cycle of the baby boomers is coming to an end and that higher rates of retirees is one of the largest contributors to employment-population ratio. I don't think i should have to suggest that you were aware of that and should have indicated that as it's not obvious to everyone.

 

i have a couple of issues with the ratio and it's place within the discussion of presidential policies and their effectiveness. The first is that in the 2000's we have seen major multinationals attempt to divest itself of higher pay more experienced workers, including Ford Motor. This started with buyouts on salary side and continued with buyouts on the hourly side. Now this should be a one for one but as real life indicates it is not and the company has been very clear that it would not replace one for one through attrition. both hourly and salary. This exacerbates the situation of the boomer retirements.

 

The second is the wage issue as companies have downsized due to both productivity gains and market forces the more experienced worker in his 50's has a harder time to get hired as companies consider them overqualified for the wages they wish to offer. This also take into account the vesting of retirements.

 

Retirements in spite of whatever definition one uses are only wages deferred. As part of my wage package I take less upfront money and the company pays me an amount later.

 

A man 52 to 55 year old who has 30 years and vested retirement is laid off and then struggles to find a new job because companies don't want to have him come in for 10 to 15 years get vested for a partial retirement and then draw from it. Retirements funds are complex entities and often are used to shore up companies liquidity as the investments they make fund the retirement above the required amount they will pull that money instead of saving it towards future funding. If investments go down it's better to have someone 20 years away from drawing on it. They then have time for the investment or others to make up the loses.

 

This is a lose/lose for the corporation as they are unable to kick the can as far down the road as they like.

 

This is were a self removal from the employment market affects the ratio. (This is an unintended consequence of the free market produce a profit for the shareholder bean counter management style)

 

Now if you look going back to 2000 you see that except for small swings we have been mostly stagnant. this is not a political statement as much as it is a truth. I want to show you what it is your actually looking at without establishing a political point for policy because I don't believe it's policy that drives this.

 

I will suggest that the numbers for Bush 43 are frighteningly similar to those of Obama for the first four years and he was still elected. (Jan 2001 64.4, Sept 2004 62.3. Jan 2009 60.6, Sept 2012 58.7.)

 

Many of you won't be happy with what can be drawn from these charts but they show one thing very clearly.

 

That the economic picture of our lives is more complex than partisan political debates can account for. We are on a very interesting possible multiple decade slide that sees us through both parties. Also that If you wish to reduce everything to it's lowest common denominator that shows more about you than it does the President.

[Langston Hughes]

4 more years of Obama's help and you can expand that chart.....downward.

 

You always shoot your mouth off and you have no idea of how anything works or why it is happening. Is it enough to go through life attempting to remain ignorant of the world around you while acting so assured of yourself.

 

Here you are. ( I do wonder if you'll even get it)

 

 

Hint: It's not a cock reference.

[Mark B. Morrow]

4 more years of Obama's help and you can expand that chart.....downward.

 

Except for the FACT that our population is ageing. More people are living well past retirement age and we are in the midst of a large part of our population reaching retirement age due to the Baby Boom of the late '40s and early '50s. We have had a lower birth rate since the 1960s. We will have a larger portion of our population in their post-employment years for the next decade.

[FordBuyer]

Except for the FACT that our population is ageing. More people are living well past retirement age and we are in the midst of a large part of our population reaching retirement age due to the Baby Boom of the late '40s and early '50s. We have had a lower birth rate since the 1960s. We will have a larger portion of our population in their post-employment years for the next decade.

 

No matter who is President, the fact that 10,000 baby boomers are retiring everyday will create many new jobs over the next decade as many shortages in many areas of job market are taking place already. The burden is now on the educational system to train or retrain younger workers to fill these many needs coming up and already here in many cases. Lower taxes by themselves doesn't fill these empty or soon to be empty job slots. As it is, 3.5 million job slots go unfilled every year because unemployed out there lack the credentials/skills/experience to fill them. And that fact doesn't have anything to do with who is in White House for most part.

 

On side note, Romney spend 20 minutes or so attacking Obama about gas prices as if hurricanes, pipeline breaks, BP spill in Gulf, refinerty fires and shutdowns, Mid East tension, and other assorted action have no effect on oil and gas pump prices. You would think Romney would know that and would spend more time on his fantasy tax plan and filling the huge deficit with fantasy ending of certain tax deductions like mortgage interest that is back bone of housing industry and middle class homeownership that their lives group around as their centerpiece to their lifestyle. Romney really is a snake oil salesmen that is really trying to dupe independent voters. Hard to believe they could fall for this nonsense.

[napfirst]

Let me quote a little more from that article:

[/background][/size]

As I have often argued on here with grbeck, producing more with less labor (i.e. marking more and more of your fellow humans as expendable) doesn't mean squat if there's no equitable way to distribute the gains in productivity (which has tripled over the last 40 years). As I have also said (and some on here will recall me beating this drum more than 10 years ago), the housing bubble was symptomatic of a hollowing out of the economy: people (at that time) working more and more hours per household per year - something like 30% more than 40 years earlier - putting the wives to work, creating financial instruments and leveraging the real estate market in order to falsely sustain a standard of living that was no longer possible. The chickens have come home to roost, and the foolish wonder why Obama hasn't fixed it in 42 months. Laughable.

So you didn't believe him in 2008 when he said he was going to fix the economy?........but you voted for him antway.......liberals tend to have low expectations.....

[Trimdingman]

There is one silver lining for America. As more and more foreign countries become dangerous places to live, people who have the means will be looking to re-locate to somewhere safe. This could solve the real estate crisis. Also, if we are the "last man standing", even though our money will be inflated, it will be inflated a lot less than other world currencies, so it will appear to be deflated, thus more valuable. I am not totally bought into this theory, but it is interesting.

[Marginal Economist]

The CNN link is not opening on my computer.

 

I'd like to take a minute and suggest that you are aware that the worklife cycle of the baby boomers is coming to an end and that higher rates of retirees is one of the largest contributors to employment-population ratio. I don't think i should have to suggest that you were aware of that and should have indicated that as it's not obvious to everyone.

 

i have a couple of issues with the ratio and it's place within the discussion of presidential policies and their effectiveness. The first is that in the 2000's we have seen major multinationals attempt to divest itself of higher pay more experienced workers, including Ford Motor. This started with buyouts on salary side and continued with buyouts on the hourly side. Now this should be a one for one but as real life indicates it is not and the company has been very clear that it would not replace one for one through attrition. both hourly and salary. This exacerbates the situation of the boomer retirements.

 

The second is the wage issue as companies have downsized due to both productivity gains and market forces the more experienced worker in his 50's has a harder time to get hired as companies consider them overqualified for the wages they wish to offer. This also take into account the vesting of retirements.

 

Retirements in spite of whatever definition one uses are only wages deferred. As part of my wage package I take less upfront money and the company pays me an amount later.

 

A man 52 to 55 year old who has 30 years and vested retirement is laid off and then struggles to find a new job because companies don't want to have him come in for 10 to 15 years get vested for a partial retirement and then draw from it. Retirements funds are complex entities and often are used to shore up companies liquidity as the investments they make fund the retirement above the required amount they will pull that money instead of saving it towards future funding. If investments go down it's better to have someone 20 years away from drawing on it. They then have time for the investment or others to make up the loses.

 

This is a lose/lose for the corporation as they are unable to kick the can as far down the road as they like.

 

Many of you won't be happy with what can be drawn from these charts but they show one thing very clearly.

 

That the economic picture of our lives is more complex than partisan political debates can account for. We are on a very interesting possible multiple decade slide that sees us through both parties. Also that If you wish to reduce everything to it's lowest common denominator that shows more about you than it does the President.

 

Great post and use of the additional graphs. I didn't spend enough time at the BLS site to look around. I deleted some of your post just for readability - hope that is OK.

 

I think the retiring boomers play some effect, but not to the affect that I think you are suggesting. The steep drop between 2008 and 2010 suggest much more than a retirement issue, and that should have been around the earliest the early boomers could retire. 4% of a 250M population is 10M jobs. At a retirement rate of 3M year and 2.5M+ graduating high school, other issues played a much larger factor.

 

If this is retirement related, and 58%-59% is the new normal, with a continued decline as we hit the heart of the boomers, programs like Medicare and SSI look even more out of whack. We'll have less workers supprting more people and the increased interest on the debt will continue to grow as a larger share of GDP. If we normalize in 10 years at 55% of Americans working, and they are working lower paying jobs, this does not appear to be sustainable.

 

I don't think the pension and vesting issues are as important - I started with Ford after 2001 and was never offered a defined benefit retirement plan. I have a 401K thru Ford and they chip in somewhere between 2-4% of my wages into a retirement account. Most of my friends who have left Ford for other jobs are recieving similar benefits. I don't know of many private sector jobs with defined benefit plans (non-union).

 

I don't think these numbers are caused by the overall policies of either party. I think these paint a much more interesting picture than standard unemployment numbers, and again I thank you for going back and picking up the 90's on the graphs.

 

Key takeaways for me:

1. The unemployment numbers need to keep dropping to make up the increasing number of retirees.

2. Even as more people are working, they may be making less.

3. Our social safety nets pay be dramatically underfunded as the ratio declines.

4. The stimulus that was spent may have been necessary just to keep the ratio from dropping further.

5. The effects of a lower employment ratio could hurt future GDP growth more than I realized.

6. To offset these losses, much more improvement in efficiency and productivity is going to be neccesary.

7. If retirements continue at a higher rate, unemployement should take care of itself no matter who wins the election, but it may not improve the % of Americans working.

[FiredMotorCompany]

1)Unemployment consistently over 8% for 44 months-despite Obama's assurances his plan had to be passed to keep it form EVER getting that bad.

 

2)Obama trounced during first debate.

 

2)Magically(?) unemployment numbers inexplicably tumble to the lowest in 4 years. No explanation to justify the improved numbers. Suspicions of under reporting of unemployment claims. California flatly denies they were the state that had under reported their unemployment claims.

 

3)Second presidential debate approaching.

 

4)Quietly, we find that the numbers were TOO LOW, and it WAS California!

 

And the man responsible for reporting the kidnapped report is an Obama supporter.

 

 

Who'd a thunk it?

 

It's so exasperating when I read the comments from folks willing to slip away from reality to swoon over their Messiah.

[Langston Hughes]

Great post and use of the additional graphs. I didn't spend enough time at the BLS site to look around. I deleted some of your post just for readability - hope that is OK.

 

I think the retiring boomers play some effect, but not to the affect that I think you are suggesting. The steep drop between 2008 and 2010 suggest much more than a retirement issue, and that should have been around the earliest the early boomers could retire. 4% of a 250M population is 10M jobs. At a retirement rate of 3M year and 2.5M+ graduating high school, other issues played a much larger factor.

 

If this is retirement related, and 58%-59% is the new normal, with a continued decline as we hit the heart of the boomers, programs like Medicare and SSI look even more out of whack. We'll have less workers supprting more people and the increased interest on the debt will continue to grow as a larger share of GDP. If we normalize in 10 years at 55% of Americans working, and they are working lower paying jobs, this does not appear to be sustainable.

 

I don't think the pension and vesting issues are as important - I started with Ford after 2001 and was never offered a defined benefit retirement plan. I have a 401K thru Ford and they chip in somewhere between 2-4% of my wages into a retirement account. Most of my friends who have left Ford for other jobs are recieving similar benefits. I don't know of many private sector jobs with defined benefit plans (non-union).

 

I don't think these numbers are caused by the overall policies of either party. I think these paint a much more interesting picture than standard unemployment numbers, and again I thank you for going back and picking up the 90's on the graphs.

 

Key takeaways for me:

1. The unemployment numbers need to keep dropping to make up the increasing number of retirees.

2. Even as more people are working, they may be making less.

3. Our social safety nets pay be dramatically underfunded as the ratio declines.

4. The stimulus that was spent may have been necessary just to keep the ratio from dropping further.

5. The effects of a lower employment ratio could hurt future GDP growth more than I realized.

6. To offset these losses, much more improvement in efficiency and productivity is going to be neccesary.

7. If retirements continue at a higher rate, unemployement should take care of itself no matter who wins the election, but it may not improve the % of Americans working.

 

Thank you.

 

I have yet to find the numbers i'm looking for to get a really accurate account of what the percentage of retirements is, but using my own anecdotal evidence from Ford at my hiring, over 50 percent of the workforce in my plant was 25 plus in 1996 and that included my father a boomer who subsequently retired in 2008. Also the house I purchased in 2006 was being sold by an IBM salary who was part of the last remaining group in the state that had a defined benefit retirement and was being forced out with his 30 years. This to me indicates that the retirement issue does play into the drops before and during the Obama admin to some extent.

 

As for SSI, I am thinking that once we get over the retirement hill that we will not have the need of the drastic cuts and reduced outlays. I don't believe that we are going the way of Japan with it's inverted pyramid but rather a smaller more vertical base maintaining the status quo.

 

 

I believe #7 is the issue especially with the number of jobs that are returning as things like Ford's 2 tier pay. While it helps keep the company more profitable it has some nasty long term effects on our economic future. Replacing better wage earners with less well paid workers effects our state and federal revenue along with consumer consumption in a negative fashion. Unless they can not meet demand without overtime a 2nd tier wage earner on 40 hours is unlikely to be a significant net tax payer in the Federal system and will likely decrease the amount of revenue paid into SSI. While they would initial increase consumption as retirees may maintain a certain level of spending for a number of years eventually they regress in consumption and the new wage earner can not maintain the previous expenditures. Ultimately that is what is leading our crisis now. Not people who made little money and got a mortgage but those that drove years of consumption through leveraging their housing. We will not see that level of consumption without starting the bubble again.

 

That is why I'm not drastically bothered by the minimal GDP gains as there is little chance of returning to that level of growth without once again playing the system. A sound level of growth without leveraging would be more in line with 2 to 2.5 percent as a maximum and 1.5 or more as decent. I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't try to increase it or that obama has done all he should, but that people ho envision 4 to 5% and attack him for not meeting that are not living in reality. We were getting 3 to 5% under artificial means during the 90's through the mid 2000's. Sound financial planning and realistic purchasing would not lend itself to those levels again.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Langston Hughes

[retro-man]

So you didn't believe him in 2008 when he said he was going to fix the economy?........but you voted for him antway.......liberals tend to have low expectations.....

I have said many times (so here, I'll say it again for you): The economy is not going to regain a semblance of health until sometime after 2020. The issues are that deep, and that long-standing. If you believe that either Obama or McCain could have stepped into the steaming pile of doodoo left by the Bush administration (let me clarify here that I am not pinning the entire blame on Bush - only that he was uniquely qualified to make the worst of a bad situation) then you must believe in the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny too. Like it or not, Obama came in with 850,000 job losses a month, and has turned it around to at least a tepid gain per month of 40,000 or so. I call that a turnaround.

[FiredMotorCompany]

I have said many times (so here, I'll say it again for you): The economy is not going to regain a semblance of health until sometime after 2020. The issues are that deep, and that long-standing. If you believe that either Obama or McCain could have stepped into the steaming pile of doodoo left by the Bush administration (let me clarify here that I am not pinning the entire blame on Bush - only that he was uniquely qualified to make the worst of a bad situation) then you must believe in the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny too. Like it or not, Obama came in with 850,000 job losses a month, and has turned it around to at least a tepid gain per month of 40,000 or so. I call that a turnaround.

 

So If/When Romney wins the election, will you defend him when the left attack him for failure to turn the economy around in 4 years with this same logic?

[FordBuyer]

So If/When Romney wins the election, will you defend him when the left attack him for failure to turn the economy around in 4 years with this same logic?

 

That's the trouble with extreme partisan politics. If a Repub gets continually hammered for years while in White House, then a Demo gets hammered in return. The cycle just keeps going with both parties continually at war with each other with no chance for compromise. So you get craziness like if unemployment numbers go up, it's proof that Obama can't improve the economy, and if unemployment goes down, it's Dept. of Labor cooking the books.

 

Also when talking about economy, most people "feel" it improving or not in the state they live in. They don't relate very well to it nationally, but locally. For example, here in SE MI, freeways were very sparse at rush hour in 2009 as so many plants were down and so many out of work. Now in 2012, auto plants in area are going full steam, and in general freeways are as crowded as ever at rush hour. Roads in general have much more traffic on them. In MI, auto accidents and fatalities are up significantly as proof that traffic is much worse than in 2009. In 2009, about 9.5 million cars were sold, in 2012 14.5 million projected. School districts have more money and state of MI is doing much better with balanced budget and more money to give to schools. So if you live in MI, you see that economy is so much better than 2009. It's like night and day. It seems to be much the same in Ohio with Chrysler in Toledo and Honda going full steam. So to say economy hasn't improved much is pure and utter bullshit. At least for MI and Ohio, and I'm sure other states have improved markedly also. Maybe not as much as MI or Ohio, but markedly improved. Housing is coming back nationally, not just MI where there is now shortage of houses for sale. The S&P going from a low of 700 or so to now over 1400 certainly makes many Americans feel more wealthy, more willing to buy vehicles and go on vacations as they see their portfolio go up month after month. And that is national, not state by state. You feel better when your net worth is back on rise and even your house is worth 7% more than last year. We are headed in right direction, and all the spin in world from conservatives will not change the FACTS.

[FiredMotorCompany]

That's the trouble with extreme partisan politics. If a Repub gets continually hammered for years while in White House, then a Demo gets hammered in return. The cycle just keeps going with both parties continually at war with each other with no chance for compromise. So you get craziness like if unemployment numbers go up, it's proof that Obama can't improve the economy, and if unemployment goes down, it's Dept. of Labor cooking the books.

 

I think the accusations were valid when the sequence of events were proved by the California reports actually being under-reported before the debate, then adjusted upward the next week, thereby erasing the unexpected reduction to a level unseen in 44 weeks. The culprit having donated the maximum allowed to the Obama campaign in 2008. And you deny there was "cooked books"?

 

For the links related to my claims, see post #84 on this thread.

 

 

 

 

.

Edited October 20, 2012 by FiredMotorCompany

[Trimdingman]

Nothing will change until the bulk of government is eliminated. The political will to do this is not there. It will take a devastating depression followed by war to wake people up. Even then, there will be deception. "Government didn't cause this. It was the Capitalists. We need bigger government than ever." This is what happened the last time. Hopefully, this time it will be different.

[retro-man]

So If/When Romney wins the election, will you defend him when the left attack him for failure to turn the economy around in 4 years with this same logic?

 

Look, we're all going to look at the facts and form our own conclusions about them. I tend to believe that there's actually about a 30 year lag between major policy shifts and their peak effects on the economy. That's why I can't pin all the blame on Dubbya. The movements in the 30s toward government expenditures on things like infrastructure ("stimulus money" at the time), social safety net (unemployment insurance and social security), toward regulation of the financial markets, and the rise of the union movement were felt first during the war (we wouldn't have had cheap aluminum fueling a robust aircraft industry here in the Northwest without the BPA before it, and the Oakridge nuclear lab wouldn't have happened without the TVA), but really reached their own in the 50s and 60s as graduates of the GI bill, commerce rolling on interstate highways, an educated workforce, super-productive farmlands the result of irrigation projects and rural electrification vaulted us to number one in the world in per capita income, educational attainment, life expectancy, standard of living, and military power. Some of those things - unemployment insurance in particular - were the only things standing between this last downturn and full-blown depression, Hoovervilles and all.

 

What we are living out now: the "hollowization" of the American economy, is the inevitable result of the smashing of the union movement, the neglect of the infrastructure (or rather selling it off to the scrappers), the outsourcing of the middle class (to raise the profit margins of a relatively few investors), and the hysterical anti-government climate that fueled the deregulation that made the Great Recession possible. All of those things are the fallout from "The Reagan Revolution". I grew up in Roosevelt's America. My kids grew up in Reagan's America. I am deeply sorry that my generation failed to provide them the same caliber of country that my generation was provided by our parents and grandparents.

 

Back to your question though - it was predicted by most economists (admittedly the same ones who didn't see it coming) that we would have a 'U'-shaped recovery from this recession: slowly bottoming out, bumping along the bottom for awhile, then slowly climbing back out - not a 'V' shaped recovery, which seems to be what all those dumping on Obama after 42 months in office are naively (or disingenuously) expecting. The economy will gradually recover, unless we slip off the shelf once more and go in for a double dip. I think this will happen either under Obama or under Romney. I do think that there needs to be more critical thinking about supply-side economics, and of the two candidates Romney is the stronger proponent. Many on here have celebrated, or at least defended, the new 2-tier labor agreements being negotiated with the UAW for domestic auto production and the "facts of life" of the value of labor in a global economy. I read an interesting article the other day that spells out what I intuitively know about these arrangements and the global labor pool that makes them possible: they will come back to bite us. They are a severe tax on the future. Autoworkers earning less than $30k / yr. will make a very poor consumer class. They will be able to save very little for their own retirements, and contribute very little toward their children's educations. They will contribute very little toward the tax base that provides for the common good. Romney talks a lot about putting Americans back to work, and making Americans prosperous again. I don't see how the "smart" business practices of Bain Capital (and its ilk) accomplishes that at all. Unless you think working at Staples for $10 or $12 / hr. is the key to a middle class lifestyle.

Edited October 21, 2012 by retro-man

[Marginal Economist]

So basically, no politician is going to fix this in the next couple of years. Both sides are incorrect, and Obama was incorrect 4 years ago as well. If McCain was elected, he'd have likely been wrong.

 

I blame most of this on the housing bubble - and I think it goes back at least 35 years.

[napfirst]

I have said many times (so here, I'll say it again for you): The economy is not going to regain a semblance of health until sometime after 2020. The issues are that deep, and that long-standing. If you believe that either Obama or McCain could have stepped into the steaming pile of doodoo left by the Bush administration (let me clarify here that I am not pinning the entire blame on Bush - only that he was uniquely qualified to make the worst of a bad situation) then you must believe in the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny too. Like it or not, Obama came in with 850,000 job losses a month, and has turned it around to at least a tepid gain per month of 40,000 or so. I call that a turnaround.

You didn't answer my question...why did you vote for him if you didn't think he could fix the economy...

[retro-man]

You didn't answer my question...why did you vote for him if you didn't think he could fix the economy...

Because I didn't think he would perpetuate the policies that wrecked it (tax cuts for the rich, unfunded wars, deregulation of a rogue financial sector), because he promised to do something about our piss-poor healthcare system, because he opposed invading Iraq, because McCain was looking a little out of touch on the economy, because McCain's running mate was weak, and last but not least, because of my earnest belief that the entire Republican establishment had earned itself a 10 year long bitch slap for delivering us the worst President in US history, and my fervent hope that it would get it. Does that cover it?

[Langston Hughes]

So basically, no politician is going to fix this in the next couple of years. Both sides are incorrect, and Obama was incorrect 4 years ago as well. If McCain was elected, he'd have likely been wrong.

 

I blame most of this on the housing bubble - and I think it goes back at least 35 years.

 

Everyone was incorrect as was Greenspan. We can say that neo-liberal economics and the free market works but it only did as long as we could leverage everything we had to get new stuff. It's time to expect 2% growth as sound and understand that we are not a major emerging market and the post world war II bump was based on manufacturing and trade laws that we don't have now.

[napfirst]

Because I didn't think he would perpetuate the policies that wrecked it (tax cuts for the rich, unfunded wars, deregulation of a rogue financial sector), because he promised to do something about our piss-poor healthcare system, because he opposed invading Iraq, because McCain was looking a little out of touch on the economy, because McCain's running mate was weak, and last but not least, because of my earnest belief that the entire Republican establishment had earned itself a 10 year long bitch slap for delivering us the worst President in US history, and my fervent hope that it would get it. Does that cover it?

It appears that he really let you down...maybe you should think about voting repub...

[FiredMotorCompany]

Look, we're all going to look at the facts and form our own conclusions about them. I tend to believe that there's actually about a 30 year lag between major policy shifts and their peak effects on the economy. That's why I can't pin all the blame on Dubbya. The movements in the 30s toward government expenditures on things like infrastructure ("stimulus money" at the time), social safety net (unemployment insurance and social security), toward regulation of the financial markets, and the rise of the union movement were felt first during the war (we wouldn't have had cheap aluminum fueling a robust aircraft industry here in the Northwest without the BPA before it, and the Oakridge nuclear lab wouldn't have happened without the TVA), but really reached their own in the 50s and 60s as graduates of the GI bill, commerce rolling on interstate highways, an educated workforce, super-productive farmlands the result of irrigation projects and rural electrification vaulted us to number one in the world in per capita income, educational attainment, life expectancy, standard of living, and military power. Some of those things - unemployment insurance in particular - were the only things standing between this last downturn and full-blown depression, Hoovervilles and all.

 

What we are living out now: the "hollowization" of the American economy, is the inevitable result of the smashing of the union movement, the neglect of the infrastructure (or rather selling it off to the scrappers), the outsourcing of the middle class (to raise the profit margins of a relatively few investors), and the hysterical anti-government climate that fueled the deregulation that made the Great Recession possible. All of those things are the fallout from "The Reagan Revolution". I grew up in Roosevelt's America. My kids grew up in Reagan's America. I am deeply sorry that my generation failed to provide them the same caliber of country that my generation was provided by our parents and grandparents.

 

Back to your question though - it was predicted by most economists (admittedly the same ones who didn't see it coming) that we would have a 'U'-shaped recovery from this recession: slowly bottoming out, bumping along the bottom for awhile, then slowly climbing back out - not a 'V' shaped recovery, which seems to be what all those dumping on Obama after 42 months in office are naively (or disingenuously) expecting. The economy will gradually recover, unless we slip off the shelf once more and go in for a double dip. I think this will happen either under Obama or under Romney. I do think that there needs to be more critical thinking about supply-side economics, and of the two candidates Romney is the stronger proponent. Many on here have celebrated, or at least defended, the new 2-tier labor agreements being negotiated with the UAW for domestic auto production and the "facts of life" of the value of labor in a global economy. I read an interesting article the other day that spells out what I intuitively know about these arrangements and the global labor pool that makes them possible: they will come back to bite us. They are a severe tax on the future. Autoworkers earning less than $30k / yr. will make a very poor consumer class. They will be able to save very little for their own retirements, and contribute very little toward their children's educations. They will contribute very little toward the tax base that provides for the common good. Romney talks a lot about putting Americans back to work, and making Americans prosperous again. I don't see how the "smart" business practices of Bain Capital (and its ilk) accomplishes that at all. Unless you think working at Staples for $10 or $12 / hr. is the key to a middle class lifestyle.

 

Because I didn't think he would perpetuate the policies that wrecked it (tax cuts for the rich, unfunded wars, deregulation of a rogue financial sector), because he promised to do something about our piss-poor healthcare system, because he opposed invading Iraq, because McCain was looking a little out of touch on the economy, because McCain's running mate was weak, and last but not least, because of my earnest belief that the entire Republican establishment had earned itself a 10 year long bitch slap for delivering us the worst President in US history, and my fervent hope that it would get it. Does that cover it?

retro-man, you are sneaking up on one of my pet peeves. The delay between cause and effect. If an action's negative effects are felt immediately, we react and recognize the cause. But, when printing money today, or some radical new legislation, or policy directive only causes problems months, or years later, the American people's short attention span allows politicians to kick the can down the road. And they know full well how to use the technique.

 

Imagine Obama coming out at tonight's debate and not wear a flag on his lapel, not hold his hand on his heart, call the Cambridge Police stupid, kowtow to another foreign leader, try to pass Obamacare, declare that he is going to bankrupt the coal industry, "redistribution is good", go play a game of golf, etc............... People would remember those on election day and Obama would LOSE!!!!!!

Edited October 22, 2012 by FiredMotorCompany

[retro-man]

It appears that he really let you down...maybe you should think about voting repub...

Hey, I gotta give you credit for trying.

[FiredMotorCompany]

Well, last month the champagne corks were a popping when (incomplete) unemployment numbers were released just in time for the debates.

 

How many heard the complete number re;eased a week later? Where did you see it? ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, Newspaper, Internet, or the Obama Campaign??????? NO.

 

The numbers went back UP to above 8%, Golly!

 

A whisper gets more notice!!!

 

So now, the storm will suffice as a plausible excuse for withholding the next release until after the election due to the Federal Government shutdown due to Sandy.

 

HOW CONVENIENT!!!

 

Too bad the early votes will count and no provision has been provided for withdrawing your vote and recasting it due to new information.

 

Like I said, if they could, you would be allowed to vote for two terms simultaneously. One vote-eight years. Let's not let pesky details like incompetence and near treasonous actions interfere with getting "your" guy in and keeping him there.

 

There is some logic to having an Election Day as opposed to an Election Month or year.

 

In a reversal from the original report, the DOL has issued an update to their peremptory delay to the release of the October Unemployment numbers:

UPDATE: Labor Department ‘Working Hard’ to Ensure Jobs Report Released on Time

[partsisparts]

Well, last month the champagne corks were a popping when (incomplete) unemployment numbers were released just in time for the debates.

 

How many heard the complete number re;eased a week later? Where did you see it? ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, Newspaper, Internet, or the Obama Campaign??????? NO.

 

The numbers went back UP to above 8%, Golly!

 

A whisper gets more notice!!!

 

So now, the storm will suffice as a plausible excuse for withholding the next release until after the election due to the Federal Government shutdown due to Sandy.

 

HOW CONVENIENT!!!

 

Too bad the early votes will count and no provision has been provided for withdrawing your vote and recasting it due to new information.

 

Like I said, if they could, you would be allowed to vote for two terms simultaneously. One vote-eight years. Let's not let pesky details like incompetence and near treasonous actions interfere with getting "your" guy in and keeping him there.

 

There is some logic to having an Election Day as opposed to an Election Month or year.

 

In a reversal from the original report, the DOL has issued an update to their peremptory delay to the release of the October Unemployment numbers:

UPDATE: Labor Department ‘Working Hard’ to Ensure Jobs Report Released on Time

Do you have a source for the unemployment rate numbers you posted? I just looked and it is at 7.8%

 

No one else reported the number being "erased" because it is a bullshit story, so only Fox would pick it up.If it were true don't you think Rmoney's camp would have ran with it?

Edited October 30, 2012 by partsisparts